Rebublican use of the term "class warfare"

Politics & Elections
1

Obama’s new proposed tax on those making over $1,000,000* seems to have Upset some in the Republican party:

Do the Republicans want to open this can of worms? I think that they can then fairly be accused of “Class warfare” when they want to cut taxes and then eliminate social programs for the poor.

And by using the term “Class warfare”, does this mean that the Republicans acknowledge the existence of distinct “classes” in the USA, based on wealth? And by framing this as “class warfare”, and railing against it, do they then explicitly agree that they want these classes to remain static, with no chance of upward mobility by the “lower” classes? Keep them in their place and whatnot?

I think that the million dollar mark is a good one to use by the Obama administration. It has a cachet to it. The Republicans can be painted as “fighting for millionaires”.
*to head off the inevitable highjack about "those with $1,000,000 in assets are not “rich”, I believe the proposal is to increase the tax on the YEARLY INCOME that is above $1,000,000. Thus someone who makes $1,050,000 would pay an additional percentage tax on $50,000. So realistically, one would have to have an INCOME of many millions before they would notice much of a difference.

2

How about this one, then?

It has been demonstrated that low taxes do not induce ‘those people who create jobs’ to create jobs.

3

You’re trying to use a term that has become purely emotional in a rational way. That is doomed to failure. “Class warfare” has only one meaning in today’s politics: attacks by Democrats on job providers. Whether that has any connection to reality is irrelevant. Politics is a language and its idioms no more have to make logical sense than any other idioms do. You might as well complain that no animals are seen when it’s raining cats and dogs.

4

Sorry, but I"m not using the term. Paul Ryan, Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee used the term. The term “Class warfare” was used by a Republican attacking a Democrat president.

The is rather the point of the OP. Was it a good idea for Ryan to go there? Did he use the “wrong” language in the world of politics?

Bear in mind that we’re not talking about the top 1% of income earners here. (annual income of around $300,00) Nor the top 0.5% (annual income of around $500,000) But rather the top 0.1%, who generally do not get their income from “work” but rather as investment income, most usually from participation in the financial or banking industries (stock options, company buyouts)

5

As long as it’s only one side attacking another, it’s not warfare. It only becomes a war when the other side fights back.

6

Is this the first time you’ve noticed the Republicans using that phrase?

7

Certainly the first I’ve noticed the Republicans are defending a “class” that makes up only 0.1% of the population, and who seems to be doing pretty good at the moment. I’m asking if this is a good thing for them to be doing right now, from a political standpoint. Defending the top 0.1% when unemployment is still high and real wages for the majority are actually dropping seems to be… a losing proposition.

8

In a rational world, the Republicans’ spin on class warfare would be laughable. It’s no secret that the Republicans use focus groups to choose their messaging, and I expect that this message resonates at this point in time.

We have low federal income taxes historically, and most peoples tax rates have gone down under Obama, but people want to believe just the opposite. There is also now the popular meme that poor people are not paying their fair share of income tax. The idea that we should raise taxes on low income people, and lower them on upper income earners, would have been unthinkable just 5 years ago.

I think it is a result of Democrats and liberals courting minorities, women, gays, poor people, and other groups and pretty much ignoring everyone else. We have programs to increase the number of women in science, affirmative action and special scholarships for minority students, hate crime laws, and a host of other very visible attempts to help people who have been historically marginalized.

If you are a straight, Christian, employed, white guy it looks like the Democrats are ignoring you. But those people are facing a whole host of problems: healthcare and insurance rates are skyrocketing, wages are stagnating, home equity is dropping, the cost of sending your kids to college is almost prohibitive. During the healthcare debates the Democrats should have spent more time talking about the problems people with insurance face, rather than how we are going to cover the people too poor to have insurance. Done right, UHC would lower costs for everyone just like it did in the rest of the world. That’s the win-win strategy.

Given a choice between allying with rich, successful people or the poor and down trodden, middle class is choosing the former. It shouldn’t be too surprising. Democrats need to focus like a laser on the middle class. Solve their problems and you are helping everyone.

Here is an example: black people have a lower rate of college enrollment than white people. You can solve that by tailoring programs to minorities, or you could target people whose parents did not graduate from college. The latter is going to have broader support and generate less resentment while still accomplishing the goals. The ads pretty much write themselves “When I came back from WWII the GI Bill enabled me to be the first one in my family to go to college. I went on to form a business that provides jobs for 3,000 people. But today, we have millions of bright men and women who lack the means to gain the advantages I did…”.

9

It’s 0.5% of the population or so. The total income above $1M of this group is around $1T. They already are paying about 27% on the average in taxes. What are you going to raise their taxes by - 10%? Ok. That’s $100B/year in extra revenues (if their incomes stay the same - which is doubtful, since a lot of people like that can easily defer their revenues for better tax times, but for the sake of argument let’s say they will stay the same).

The deficit is $1.5T. That extra tax on high earners will bring in $100B. That reduces the deficit by 7%.

How are you going to tackle the remaining 93%?

10

The reason our deficit is so high right now, isn’t because of anything Obama is doing. It’s high because the economic downturn has lowered tax receipts and increased outlays, like unemployment insurance; the Bush tax cuts; and the wars.

If the economy does better, allowing more tax revenue and less unemployment, that will lower the deficit greatly. The elimination of the Bush tax cuts (for everyone) will lower it further. The wars, more still. When the Healthcare legislation goes into full effect, further still.

Are you of the opinion that because something doesn’t cover the whole amount it isn’t worth doing?

11

No I am not of that opinion. I am of the opinion that if you have a full body burn, putting a bandaid on the shoulder, though it is “doing something”, doesn’t do much.

12

You’re arguing against something no one is advocating.

Who is saying we’ll just raise the “millionaire tax”?

By the way, I didn’t check your numbers, so I don’t know if they are correct, but if this lowers seven percent of the deficit now, when the Bush tax cuts, the wars and the recession end, the percentage of the deficit the “millionaire tax” would cover would be much higher than 7%.

13

When in a hole, stop digging. The 7 percent repeats. It will kick in next year too, and the year after that. As the deficit sinks, it will be a bigger part of the cure.
There has been talk of closing loopholes and preventing major corporations from paying no income tax. There has also been a release by 11 Swiss banks telling what Americans have been hiding money offshore. The tax on the rich ,who have been accumulating money at an enormous rate, are part of the solution, not all of it.

14

Your admonition in reality translates to “when in a hole, dig slightly slower”. With deficit, your income is less than your outlays. That means going into debt. Debt that needs to be repaid. Which means that next year, your outlays will be that much more, while your income won’t be. Which leads to higher deficit.

ANY deficit at all is a recipe for disaster with the amount of debt we have. “Cure” would be to have surpluses. Having deficits is anything but “the cure”.

We have gotten to the absurd point in our history when reduced rate of increases in the government, or in budgets, or in social programs is spun (and accepted by most people, for some weird reason) as “cuts”. Which is exactly what reducing the deficit is - it is reducing the rate of increase of the debt.

15

As a lefty, I’ve always had a nostalgic amusement for old-style leftism. I’ve spent many a happy hour listening to Trotskyists belabor Leninists and, Goddess preserve us, Stalinists. Of course, it helps if both participants have a Jewish heritage and exemplify the tradition of ferocious argument over arcane distinctions. We didn’t have video games back then. Abacus games, sure, but the graphics really sucked.

What strikes me most about the phrase is exactly that, it harkens to another era. Its like appealing to the “John Birch” element of the GOP, but Shirley they are all dead by now?

Unless, of course, the people using it now are so unlettered and uneducated that they don’t even know that its “old-timey”? Considering the average American’s unsullied innocence about the labor movement in America, I suppose that’s possible.

Maybe if they start referring to Obama as a revolutionary cadre inciting the dictatorship of the proletariat? That would be…interesting.

Karl Marx…nothing
Engels nothing
Bakunin and Kropotkin nyathing
Leon Trotsky lots of nothing
Stalin… less than nothing

The Fugs

16

Although I think Obama sincerely believes that taxes should be raised on these rich people, I’m sure there’s a political element involved here where he is daring the GOP to object. The “class warfare” label is, while technically correct, probably not going to get much traction with the electorate. And although the details haven’t been disclosed yet, this tax seems like a version of the AMT (although I don’t quite understand while the existing AMT doesn’t apply and do the job just as well).

I heard Linsey Graham on one of the talk shows today pretty much dodging the question about whether he would support this tax by saying he wanted broader tax reform.

17

Absolutely dishonest. The tax on the rich is only part of the solution. That was the point . Who said the tax on the rich would be enough to balance the budget? Not I. Not the Prez. Not the Democratic party.
Any deficit is a recipe for disaster is complete idiocy. What cartoon universe do you live in? The last time deficits were ended ,it was Clinton who did it and Bush who destroyed it. You want adults in charge, vote in Dems. You want people who work for amassing money and power in the hands of the Plutocrats, vote Repub. That is who they work for, the party that says deficits don’t matter.

18

Ignoring for a moment that I don’t feel this is an accurate comparison, do you not agree that absent any other solutions, digging slower would help?

19

OK, assuming those categories are all independent:
Minorities: 27.6%
Women: 50.7%
Gays: Less precise figures are available, but let’s be conservative and call it 5%
Poor: Again, let’s be conservative and restrict this just to the poverty line. That makes it 14.3%
Other groups: This is poorly defined, of course, but let’s just say college students (about 4%) and non-Christians (24%).

Put it all together, and you find that Democrats are representing only 79% of the country, leaving that 21% of Real Americans nowhere to turn but the Republicans.

20

“Class warfare” has about as much validity as the bullshit term “job creators.”